Essential knowledge about scholarly book publishing that every author should have. Get weekly tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book from developmental editor and publishing consultant Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD.
The myth of "we don't publish dissertations"
Published 5 days ago • 4 min read
The Manuscript Works Newsletter
Essential knowledge on scholarly book publishing that every author should have
Hello Manuscript Workers!
Here’s something that used to confuse me about scholarly book publishing, and maybe it has confused you too. Scholars who hope to publish books are frequently told that the presses they are interested in publishing with don’t publish dissertations. That’s clear enough: few of us expect to submit our dissertation as-is and have it accepted for publication as a book.
Where it gets confusing is when publishers say they don’t even accept revised dissertations. This is discouraging to recent PhDs, because many want to share their hard-won research findings more broadly rather than having their work languish in a dissertation database. It’s also anxiety-provoking for early-career scholars who need to publish a book and don’t have the time or resources to write a new project completely from scratch.
And despite some presses saying they don’t publish revised dissertations, we can almost always point to a number of books published by those same presses that did originate as doctoral dissertations. We are constantly hearing about new books by early-career scholars, and surely most of them are working from their dissertation material, right?
Right. What I’ve come to realize after a decade of working with hundreds of authors on dissertation-based books is that all scholarly presses (or at least all that I’m aware of) do publish research monographs based on dissertations. However, they have particular expectations about those books not looking like dissertations to their customers, i.e. to the readers and librarians who ultimately buy scholarly books.
When you hear a publisher say that they don’t publish dissertations, what they really mean is that they are only interested in talking to authors who have already figured out how their manuscript can be made to look more like an appealing book than a dissertation. Notice that I’m not saying anything about the author’s having actually rewritten the dissertation. Sometimes radical revision is necessary, sometimes it’s not.
The authors who are getting positive responses from publishers have figured out how to talk about their projects in a way that highlights the aspects of a book that publishers really care about, which are usually somewhat different than the aspects your dissertation committee might have cared about. People who work in academic publishing are subject to the same time and labor pressures as everyone else in the neoliberal academy, meaning they often don’t have time to give deep developmental feedback to authors who show up unprepared. So they use “we don’t publish dissertations” as a shortcut form of feedback that really means "this project isn't ready for me to consider and unfortunately I don't have time to tell you how to get it ready because that's not really my job, as much as I wish I could help you."
What made your research and your dissertation valuable to you are not necessarily what will make your book valuable to publishers and the readers they hope to serve. If you want to get publishers interested in your manuscript, you’ll need to learn to shift the way you think and talk about your project. Accomplishing that shift will ensure that you never get the generic rejection of “we don’t publish dissertations” when you send your book proposal out for consideration.
My free workshop next week will detail what that shift in framing looks like. If you’ve deposited your dissertation but you’ve been afraid to look at it again or anxious about talking to publishers about it, I encourage you to join me. I hope that by learning how to frame your project in a new way, you’ll gain renewed energy for it and fresh excitement about bringing it to publishers and, eventually, to readers.
Free workshop on Wednesday, September 3rd. Recording provided.
This newsletter is coming to you from Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, professional developmental editor and publishing consultant. I help scholarly writers navigate the book publishing process with more ease and agency.
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Use my time-tested curriculum to bring structure and motivation to your book writing process. The Book Proposal Shortcut takes the guesswork out of writing an outstanding pitch for university presses and other academic publishers. Once you register for the Shortcut, you'll be eligible to join my next Book Proposal Sprint from September 8–12, a week of daily online coworking & live Q&A to help you make meaningful progress on getting your first (or next) book published.
Following the Sprint, you'll keep complimentary membership in the Manuscript Works Author Support community, a private hub for ongoing support in your scholarly book publishing journey. Inside this community you'll get honest advice about publishers, peer review, offers and contracts, as well as join live Q&A sessions with Laura Portwood-Stacer and your fellow Manuscript Works authors.
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Essential knowledge about scholarly book publishing that every author should have. Get weekly tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book from developmental editor and publishing consultant Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD.